A Memory Lost
by TwinEnigma
Summary: October 31, 1989... a major accident occurs. Two weeks later, a teenaged boy wakes up in the ICU with amnesia. In the next bed, there is a similiar-looking younger boy with a scar on his head... New Chapter!
1. Default Chapter

A Memory Lost

By TwinEnigma

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_Blanket disclaimer_: Anything you recognize, except for my OCs and the plot, I don't own. I do this for fun and absolutely no profit.

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I: Shattering Again

October 31st, 1989

It was a sunny afternoon, thin ribbon-like clouds trailing over the horizon like pale fingers. A bitter wind rattled the old iron-latticed windows now and again, the only indication of just how painfully cold it was outside. This did not seem to matter to the dozen or so children playing an impromptu game of football on the field, nor did it matter to the man observing them casually from the window.

The man snorted as one of the children tripped, his lips curling slightly into a half-smile. He was reminded of his own attempts to play football and how he had constantly tripped over his then-awkward limbs. It seemed ages ago, though it had probably been only maybe ten or twelve years. His somewhat estranged cousins had loved the game – it was the only thing the two otherwise bickering sisters could agree on.

He scowled suddenly and sharply turned away from the window. The younger of his two cousins, Lily, was dead now: she and her husband were murdered exactly eight years ago today. A madman had broken into their home in the middle of the night, intending to kill the family in their sleep. It was never exactly clear what had happened after that point, but by the time the authorities had appeared, Lily and her husband were dead – along with their murderer. Oddly enough, their son, little over a year old at the time, managed to survive the attack.

Sighing, the man looked at the scant pictures that he possessed of his cousins and their respective families. He had never approved of either of his cousins' choices in husbands: James Potter was a rogue, never still for a moment, while Vernon Dursley simply unsettled him. The child, Harry, had been sent to live with Petunia and her husband and neither of them had been particularly happy about it. His remaining cousin had called him several dozen times, begging him to take care of little Harry. Still, sending Lily's son to her sister had been the wisest choice. He was a professor at a prestigious boarding school and he simply had no time to afford for the care of a small child, as he had explained to his cousin repeatedly.

The wind rattled at the window again, jolting him from his thoughts and, slowly, the man walked to his desk. He sat, sighing heavily as his eyes scanned the papers in front of him, and reached for the crystal decanter sitting on the corner of his desk. Pouring himself a glass of brandy, he picked up the first paper and started to read, sipping at the drink every now and again.

A phone rang.

Blinking, the man shook his head and started back onto the paper. It couldn't be the telephone. The number was private and no one, not even Petunia, had called it in years.

The phone rang again.

He stood and marched over to the side-table, glaring at the offending object a moment before finally picking up the receiver.

"Is this Mister Evans?" asked the voice of a young woman. The voice was completely unfamiliar and there were sounds in the background – ringing phones, muffled voices. He couldn't make them all out.

"Yes, speaking."

"This is Saint Agnes Hospital in London," the woman said rather matter-of-factly. "Do you have a cousin by the name of Petunia Dursley? Maiden name Evans?"

He had a horrible sinking feeling in his gut as he replied, "Yes. I do. What may I ask is this in regards to?"

"There's been an accident, Mister Evans," the woman – probably a nurse – answered evenly. "We need you to come to the hospital as soon as possible."

Shakily, he asked, "What happened? Is she all right?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"I'm so sorry, Mister Evans, but your cousin..." the nurse paused again, as though searching for the right words. "She didn't make it. Your cousin and her husband had you listed as an emergency contact."

He bit his lip and clenched his free hand into a fist to keep from crying out. Slowly, he took a deep, calming breath and then raised the receiver again. "What about the boys? My cousin had two boys, her son and her nephew. Are they all right?"

"The boys are both in critical condition," the nurse explained. "We've managed to stabilize them for now, but we need you here – especially when they wake up."

Sighing heavily, he shot a brief look towards his desk and the stacks of uncorrected papers from his classes. "I need to make a few calls. I'll be there as soon as possible."

"I understand. Please, take your time, Mr. Evans," the nurse said and, shortly, hung up.

He put down the phone and numbly walked back to his desk, slumping into the chair. He wasn't aware of how long he sat there, staring ahead blankly – it could have been a few minutes or it could have been a half-hour, but he would never know for certain. The only thing he could think was that his world was shattering again.

Only this time, he would be alone. He was now the last.

The wind rattled at the windows again, a lamenting keen building in its howl, as though it wept for his loss.

For the first time in eight years, he allowed himself to cry.

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AN: Short and weird first chapter, I know. You will learn more about the mysterious Mister Evans later on. Saint Agnes Hospital, as far as I am aware, is completely fictional. This story centres on the events after the accident and at least two survivors of it: Harry and a teenaged boy suffering from amnesia due to his injuries. The teenaged boy has no identification, save for a little black book and two odd patches bearing what appear to be coats of arms. Next chapter, we will see the first appearance of our mystery patient, as well as what's happening in the ICU with Harry and Dudley. 


	2. Nameless

A Memory Lost

By TwinEnigma

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_Blanket disclaimer_: Anything you recognize, except for my OCs and the plot, I don't own. I do this for fun and absolutely no profit.

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II: Nameless

Whiteness.

The world was white when he opened his eyes for the first time. It was bright, blindingly brilliant. He blinked, trying to see in the harsh light. His head felt strange, all full of cotton and stuffy, and he couldn't make out where he was.

A woman's face suddenly appeared above him, blurry and surrounded in a halo of gold. Voices drifted around and above him, in and out of hearing. _"Doctor! Doctor, he's awake!"_

He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry and all that emerged was a weak wheedling noise. The world was starting to go white again and the woman's face was getting blurrier.

_"Can you hear me? Stay awake!"_

The world faded, becoming white again.

_"We have to keep him awake,"_ a faint male voice sounded above him. Fingers pressed against the skin of his face, holding open his left eye. There was a blurry figure standing over him that he couldn't quite make out. Slowly, the figure drew a small, slender white rod and held it over his eye. A single point of bright light burst from the end and he flinched, trying to close his eye. The figure continued to hold his eye open and he instinctively tried to push himself away.

_"Easy! Easy!"_ a woman's voice said, growing steadily clearer. A hand pressed against his arm and another lightly pressed against his shoulder. The woman's voice sounded again, now very clear: "You're safe now."

He stopped, blinking as his eyes slowly adjusted to the bright room. He could now make out the figures that had been standing over him. To his left, a man in a white coat stood by, holding a small white stick in his hand. There was a pin over the man's right breast pocket and a stethoscope in his pocket. On his right, a woman in blue with burnished gold hair and countless freckles smiled at him. It was her hands that pressed him down. There was a pin over her right breast pocket as well.

"Well, how are you feeling, young man?" the man asked.

He blinked again, looking up curiously at the man. "I... I... don't know," he answered unsteadily. His entire body was sore all over and the left side of his head throbbed dully. He felt strange, as though he was missing something but couldn't quite identify it. "My head hurts."

"That's to be expected," the man told him rather matter-of-factly. He held up the little white rod and pressed down on a small metal strip on the side. Instantly, a bright light burst from the small rod. "I want you to follow the light with your eyes. Can you do that for us?"

It seemed a strange request, but he did as the man in white asked and followed the light as the man moved it in different directions. He was surprised when this little exercise abruptly ended; he was very curious about why the man in white had asked him to follow a light with just his eyes and was wondering about the little light-rod.

"Excellent, excellent," the man in white said, smiling as he put the little rod into his breast pocket. He picked up a cream-coloured folder and opened it, jotting something down inside. "You're a very lucky young man, you know."

He stared at the man, feeling quite bewildered. "I am?"

"You were in an accident," the man in white explained, closing the folder. "In fact, it was a very severe truck accident. You sustained a heavy blow to the head – along with a few broken bones, among other things – and have been in a coma for nearly two weeks. Frankly, it's a miracle you're alive."

He knew what a truck was and what it was used for, but he couldn't recall ever being in an accident or even why a truck might have hit him. It all seemed very odd to him but it did seem to explain why he was sore all over.

"I am Doctor Turner," the man continued. He was a very neat man, stern and taciturn; he highly doubted that the doctor was a man to panic easily. "And this is Nurse Sparrow."

The woman in blue smiled broadly, revealing teeth like pearls. He was surprised by this, having expected teeth like those of a shark; he couldn't explain why he had thought that the nurse would have a shark's smile and now it seemed an unreasonable notion – save for one small part of him that still felt uneasy by that almost maddened grin. Her eyes held a wild edge in their depths; it was almost as though she was one of the birds that were her namesake. Still, her eyes were easy to read, full of a mixture of relief and concern.

"Now, we're in a bit of a fix here," Doctor Turner said, frowning slightly. "When you were admitted, we were unable to locate any sort of identification on your person..."

Nurse Sparrow shot the doctor a scolding glance and quickly interrupted, "Your name, dearie. We'd like to know your name. I'll bet your parents must be sick to death worrying."

"Of c-course... It's..." he suddenly paused, blinking in confusion. What was it? He scowled, narrowing his eyes as he tried to recall it. He knew, somehow, that he must have a name because everyone had a name and that was just the way things were, but what it could be he did not know. "...I can't remember."

The doctor and the nurse were momentarily taken aback.

"Do you remember your parents?" Doctor Turner asked, his eyes betraying a growing anxiety. "Their names, what they look like... anything?"

He shook his head and it occurred to him briefly that he wasn't even sure what he looked like. He raised his hands, examining them carefully. He noticed that his skin was very pale and his fingers were long and thin. His left arm was covered in jagged shiny pink scars, while his right was bound in a very stiff and heavy substance that looked like rough cloth. A tube disappeared into his left hand under some bandages and he followed it with his eyes up to a clear bag that hung off a metal rod on his bed; he didn't know what it was, but it made him a little uncomfortable. "Doctor, can I have a mirror? I want to see my face."

"Jackie?" the doctor gave the nurse an inquisitive look.

Nurse Sparrow nodded and hastily left the room. She returned shortly, a small round compact clutched in her hands. She opened it and gently handed it to him.

The face that greeted him was pale and drawn, haunting bright green eyes staring straight back at him. There was a plaster on the left side of his forehead and a few faint scratches on his cheeks: they might have been cuts not too long ago. His hair was jet-black and unkempt, hanging in shaggy uneven tangles around his face. It looked like someone had been trying to cut away portions of his hair to get at something.

"You had several severe lacerations on your face and scalp," Doctor Turner said quietly. "We had to give you stitches."

He ran his fingers through his hair, fingers trailing over new scars. The left side of his chest ached sharply and he drew a hissing breath. "My chest..."

"It's your ribs. They were broken," the doctor explained. "I'm going to have Nurse Sparrow go get you something for the pain, all right?"

He nodded, wincing. He wasn't quite able to follow what the doctor said next; instead, he rolled his head to the left and watched as the nurse exited the room. There were two other beds in the room, both containing the forms of younger boys. He couldn't see the furthest bed too well and, instead, examined the occupant of his immediately neighbouring bed.

A fragile-looking small boy rested in the bed, his chest rising and falling shallowly. Clear tubes ran into the boy's nose and disappeared among a nest of machines and wires. There was a metal rod attached to the boy's bed too and, like his, it had a clear bag hanging from one of several hooks on the top, with a small tube running down to the boy's right arm. The boy's left arm was folded over his chest, completely bound in what appeared to be the same stuff that currently covered his own right arm.

The most curious thing, however, was that the younger boy also had messy jet-black hair. He held up the compact again, looking at that unfamiliar face in the small mirror, and then closed it, focusing on the boy again. "Doctor Turner? Who's that?" he asked. His chest gave another sharp pain.

"The poor thing," the doctor sighed, turning to glance at the other bed. "He and his cousin both lost their family in that accident. Seems this lad's parents died several years ago in a car crash and he'd been living with his aunt and uncle. He and his cousin haven't woken up yet."

Nurse Sparrow returned, holding a small metal tray. "Mister Evans is back and pacing a hole into the waiting room floor again. Jimmy says it's your turn to talk to him," she said, an amused smile on her lips as she drew closer.

"Bloody hell," Doctor Turner muttered, starting for the door. "That man is wound tighter than a spring!" With another string of muted oaths, the doctor disappeared from the room.

The nurse shook her head slightly, still smiling, and put the tray down. She went about checking the clear bag and tube for a moment, and then removed a needle from the metal tray. "I'm going to give you some morphine, dearie. This should help with the pain," she said in a comforting tone of voice.

He watched as she removed a small blue cap from the needle and tapped the side, depressing the plunger slightly. "Um, Nurse Sparrow?" he started, his cheeks burning slightly, though he couldn't for the life of him understand why.

She pursed her lips a moment, finding a small y-shaped piece on the tube. "It's Jackie."

"Sorry," he said, his cheeks burning even more fiercely than before. "Um... Do you know anything about me? Anything at all?"

The nurse inserted the needle into the protruding end of the y-shaped piece and slowly pressed down on the plunger. "There's not much to tell, dearie." She sighed then and withdrew the needle before continuing. "The accident was two weeks ago. A truck carrying steel pipes overturned not too far from here and spilled its cargo. You were pulled out from under the spilled pipes – the crossing guard said you were in a hurry to get across the road and didn't see it coming until it was far too late."

He wondered where he was going that day, what was so important that he had been hurrying to get across that street.

Nurse Sparrow – no, _Jackie_ put the needle back into the tray and continued steadily. "You were a right mess when you came in, dearie... We honestly weren't too sure you were going to survive that first night. But one night turned into two and two into three... Well, you get the point."

He nodded slightly to show that he understood and suppressed the urge to shudder. It felt like icy water was spreading through his veins from his hand.

"As soon as we discovered you didn't have anything in the way of identification, we saved anything that might help us find out who you are," she explained patiently. "You had a few old coins in your pocket – gold and silver, that sort of thing – a battered old blank diary and a few pounds. I'll bring 'em by sometime. We also managed to save and clean the patches from your school uniform and the costume you were wearing over it."

He gave her an odd look, not quite grasping what she meant. "A costume?"

Jackie gave him a toothy grin. "It was Halloween. You were dressed up as a wizard or something, dearie... Looked like you'd just come from school, too, and just tossed it on over your uniform. The hospital put out adverts in all the papers asking if anyone matching your description was missing, but there hasn't been much luck."

"Oh," he said quietly.

The nurse gave him an odd look and picked up the tray. "Try to get some rest, dearie. We'll find your folks, you'll see," she said and left the room.

It would be some time before he drifted into a shallow sleep.

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AN: Ok, ok... I know you're going to have questions. Firstly, the nameless patient's identity is hinted at throughout the chapter and those seeking more solid clues should look at what was in his pockets. Two, the tubes are IVs. Three, Doctor Turner gives the patient a brief neurological test when he's waving around the light. Fourth, Nurse Sparrow and her 'shark-smile' will come into play later. (Just to warn you, my muse inspired me to do an entirely separate spinoff with the good doctor, his family and the nurse.) Reviews are good! 


	3. Personal Effects

A Memory Lost

By TwinEnigma

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_Blanket disclaimer_: Anything you recognize, except for my OCs and the plot, I don't own. I do this for fun and absolutely no profit.

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III: Personal Effects

The boy picked at his ID bracelet absently and resisted the urge to scratch at the tape covering the IV needle. 'John Doe,' the plastic-covered bracelet dubbed him, though both he and the hospital knew it was not his name. Nurse Jackie had explained that it was a temporary name given to those without any sort of identification and that the staff needed something to refer to him by, so if he didn't like it he'd have to come up with something else on his own. And until he did, he was stuck with 'John Doe.'

He didn't think the name suited him in the least and, without hesitation, he had requested his things in the hopes that he could at least remember something. There had to be a clue, some hint as to who he was in those remaining objects. It was hard to explain the feeling, but he just knew that he _had_ to know who he was. It was important, more than anything else, for him to know that.

Idly, he wondered if his parents – whoever they were – knew he was here. He tried to imagine what they looked like, but it was very difficult without anything to guide him. Still, he tried and when that failed, he was left adrift in a mind filled with questions.

The door opened, drawing his attention once more. Nurse Jackie, looking more than a little annoyed, entered the room with an unfamiliar man following her. "This way, Mister Evans," she bit out, gesturing to the beds nearest the door. "Try to restrain yourself this time. There is another patient here who needs his rest."

The man did not reply, save for a sharp nod in her direction, and pulled up a chair. He ignored them completely. So this was the Mister Evans that Dr. Turner had described as 'wound tighter than a spring.'

Mister Evans was a tall hawk-faced man, with a hook-shaped nose and closely cropped black hair that did little to make him look less bird-like. Everything about the man was neat and orderly, from his hair to his shoes, and he held himself with confidence. His image was soured only by the fact that his mouth was fixed in a seemingly permanent scowl and his dark eyes flashed with lightning as he watched the nurse go about her work.

"How are you holding up, kid?" Jackie asked, drawing the boy's attention back to her as she approached the bed and began the routine of checking him over.

'Kid' was one of the unofficial nicknames that had attached themselves to the boy and, though it irritated him a little to be called 'kid,' he found it infinitely better than that stupid temporary name the hospital had given him. "My chest hurts a bit, but it's not as bad as it was before," he said finally. "By any chance, did you manage to get my things for me?"

"I'll bring them in just as soon as I finish up in here," she replied, adjusting the tape securing the IV tube to his arm. "And for the last time, stop scratching at the tape!"

The boy made a face. "I wasn't going to."

"I'm sure," the nurse said dryly and stepped back. "All right, kid, you're all set. I'll be back in a minute with your things."

"Thanks, Jackie," the boy said, smiling a little.

The nurse gave him her shark-smile in return and, after giving Mister Evans a warning glare, she disappeared back into the hallway.

Mister Evans sneered slightly and reached into the leather satchel he'd brought with him, withdrawing a heavy-looking leather-bound book and a spiral bound writing tablet. Resting the book and paper on his knee, the man briefly searched his pockets before producing an elegant pen and opened the book with practiced ease. He was soon absorbed in reading, the scratching of the pen nib against paper the only proof of his continued existence. He hardly even spared Nurse Jackie a glance when she returned several minutes later with the boy's things.

"Here we are, kid," she said, smiling as she plopped a small plastic bag down on the side table next to his bed. "One blank diary, five pounds, an assortment of old coins, and two patches."

The boy drew the bag close with his left hand and reached into it, quickly finding the patches. "Which one was from my school uniform, Jackie?"

"Um, let me see..." The nurse blinked, examining both patches intently before finally pointed to the green one. "This one, I think. It's a shame we couldn't get all the blood out of them."

The boy looked closely at the green patch, nodding absently. It was a deep green shield displaying an uncoiling silver snake that seemed poised to strike. The shield itself was trimmed in elegant silver embroidery and topped with a helm, while a scroll unfurled beneath it. A dark blotchy stain obscured parts of the lettering on the scroll, rendering it impossible to make out. It made him slightly queasy to think that the stain was actually his own blood. Still, there was something about this patch, something he felt he should know...

"So, are you getting anything, dearie?" Nurse Jackie asked, jarring him from his thoughts.

The boy shook his head. "Not really. I mean, it seems familiar, but I don't recognize it." He paused and sighed, shaking his head, "I don't know what I mean."

"These things take time," the nurse said, smiling gently as she began examining the monitors of the boy in the bed next to him. "I'm sure it'll come to you sooner or later."

He nodded, feeling a little reassured by that, and put the patches down side-by-side on his lap. The boy then emptied the rest of the bag out and began to arrange the items as best he could with an IV in his left hand and a broken right arm. There was also the matter that he couldn't lean forward too far without his ribs hurting again, so he had to be extra careful when reaching for his things.

Taking mental stock of the items in front of him, he pushed the five pounds off to the side and turned his attention to the remaining items. The old coins, as they had been termed, were shiny and smooth; the faces of all the coins seemed so worn down that they were indistinct and blurry. They were quite pretty and he supposed that they had to be of some value, although he couldn't fathom what sort of significance they held. "Nuts," he sighed, absently turning over one of the bronze coins in his hand.

Mister Evans looked up at him, hawk-like eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly.

The boy, slightly unsettled, dropped the coin and decided to move on to something else for the time being. His eyes rested on the shabby black cover of the diary and a spark of something flitted across his mind. He was sure he'd seen it somewhere before and he knew it was somehow important. But how could a diary that the nurse said was blank be of any help to him?

Hesitantly, the boy drew the diary into his lap for a closer look and flipped it over so that he was looking at the front cover, which was stamped with the year 1942. He ran his fingers over the numbers slowly and it dawned on him that he wasn't quite sure what year it was. "Jackie, what's today's date?" he asked, holding up the diary for the nurse to see.

"The fifteenth of November, 1989," she began, checking off something on the chart she was looking at. She turned then and upon seeing the diary, she gave a heavy sigh. "I don't know how much help that old thing is going to be to you, dearie, seeing as it was printed maybe thirty years before you were even born."

The boy stared at her in confusion.

"I know, I know," the nurse said, giving him a reassuring squeeze on the hand. "It threw all of us for a loop, too. The inspectors told us that you must have picked it up second hand somewhere."

"How do they figure that?" the boy asked, giving the book another curious look.

The nurse reached over and opened the diary to the very first page, upon which the name T. M. Riddle was written. "The inspectors told us that they checked the name out, just to be sure. It seems that the diary originally belonged to a young man that went missing some forty-odd years ago – his name was Tom something or other..."

The boy winced as a sharp pain began to build in his head while the nurse was talking. Flashes and bursts of images shot through him like white-hot lightning, so quickly that he barely could make them out. He clutched his head, screwing his eyes shut, but the pain only got worse.

"Kid, are you okay?" nurse Jackie's voice called faintly, as though from a great distance.

He wanted to curl into a ball from the pain, but something was stopping him from moving, holding him back. A frantic beeping alarm pulsed through his muted hearing, beating in time with the flashes that lanced through his mind, and the pain became nearly unbearable. Tires screeched and high-pitched wailing whistles melted into each other, as the alarm became a haunting siren that screamed over the endless drone of engines.

"Bloody FUCK!" shouted the nurse.

It was all too much for him and the world went black.

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AN: Hi, everyone! WHEE... I'm back! Just a note... there will be some things from Book 6 mentioned here. Nothing real spoiler-ific, though... but if you haven't read Book 6 yet, you don't know what a good book you're missing! Anyway, this chapter should clear up any real remaining doubts about our mystery patient. 


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